Genres and Other Goodies

I'd like to take this opportunity to give some more information and explain the current course of action involving genres aswell as some more bits of information about the other activities of the Content Team and how you can help us out.

A change in genres and the addition of leaderboards has been on the to-do list for quite a while, now the first stage of that project is implemented with the introduction of genres and their respective leaderboards. TA truly outdid himself when he coded them to be trackable, that was a welcome surprise even to us.

Anyway, the genres we have now are what we consider to be Tier 1 genres. The current genre system will be expanded in the nearish future with the addition of Tier 2 genres. Tier 2 genres will be placed below their respective Tier 1 genres in a treelike structure. So if we have Tier 1 genres A, B and C, then we have Tier 2 genres A1, A2, B1, B2, etc. Or to use Shooter as an example of a Tier 1 genre, the Tier 2 genres will be First Person Shooter and Third Person Shooter. The Tier 2 part of the genre tree has not yet been finalised, which is the reason it hasn't been implemented yet.

Once they are in place they will feature the same tracking functionality on leaderboards as the current Tier 1 genres. That means a great increase in the posibilities of trackable leaderboards, examples could include a Tennis leaderboard, a First Person Shooter leaderboard, a Music leaderboard, a Rally leaderboard, etc. etc.

I already posted this somewhere on the forums, but here goes again. While the genres we have are in no way perfect and will probably need some tweaking, adding or changing tier 1 genres is simply not an option at this moment in time. This is something new, we're not changing it straight away because we are confident we made choices that make sense. That is in no way the same thing as saying that we made the ideal choices. We're simply giving the current system a chance, much like the way we did with flags. We implemented that, worked with it, found it to be not as good as it could be about a year or so later and then worked on improving it. Something like that could happen here too if needed. But making changes without having really worked with something is not viable since new problems will be lurking around the corner. When you talk about things everything is pretty much crystal clear, it's not until you actually have to work with your ideas that you notice some problems. We will take our time to work with this idea until we feel like we have a clear enough understanding of the problems and then we'll try to tackle them. Until then some people will without a doubt feel like they are being forgotten about, but if you look at the history of TA then it can be pretty much guaranteed that there's always improvements being made. Some just don't come fast enough for everyone.

Another thing we have changed is achievement flags as mentioned above. This has been a somewhat low key change but we're now ready to accept flagging suggestions (more about that later on in the post). The new flags and their descriptions can be found here: http://www.trueachievements.com/flags.aspx

Everyone probably knows the thread Wrong or missing game information for reporting stuff to the Content Team. I decided to have that thread locked and have multiple threads created to report info to the Content Team. The wrong and missing game info thread didn't allow for any discussion because of possible clutter. With the new threads in place it is now allowed to ask questions/clarification as long as it's done in a civilized manner.

The threads themselves have an explanation on what can be reported in them, some threads have been around for a while already, so you might recognise them. The system for reporting information in some areas has changed to where we only accept change suggestions made by people who have won the achievement in question or who have played the game in question.

That includes the thread for providing secret achievement information. While we are not saying anyone who has reported secret achievements in the past has cheated we want to be able to see the achievements been won on the account of the person who is providing us with the information. Us saying we are against cheating as a site, no matter if the account is tracked on here, is more important then having all information complete.

To the people who have not noticed yet, the threads to report achievement tiles are now needed because of the revamp of xbox.com. The scanners no longer have the ability to pick up the "colored" achievement tiles as we call them. That is the image that is shown after you unlock the achievement. The scanners can only pick up the grey tiles so we need your help to gather the colored tiles.

All of these threads exist for the simple reason that we are currently tracking over 1600 games (including some demos and duplicates). With a number that high mistakes are being made, with your help we can make sure our information is correct and up-to-date.

Admin, Moderation Manager and longest serving staff member, also a member of the Community and Events Team and host of the annual Game of the Year Awards. Likes RPG's and good stories, hates anything multiplayer.

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